


History Paper

by lesbianophelia



Category: The Hunger Games
Genre: Child Abuse Trigger Warning, Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1767625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianophelia/pseuds/lesbianophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta is working a particularly long shift at the bakery when classmate, crush, and stranger Katniss Everdeen comes in with what may be the best news of his life. Drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Katniss!” he hears his father say from the front, and he’s sure that he’s that loud for his benefit. “What can we help you with today?”  
  
“I need to see Peeta,” she says, and he drops the bag of flour he had been carrying on the table much harder than he means to. He swears under his breath, grabbing a rag and trying to get as much off the white of his face as possible.  
  
“Ah,” he hears his father say. “A very popular order. I’ll go get him for you.”  
  
It’s all he can do not to shoot his father a look when he comes back into the kitchen. _A very popular order?_ Is he trying to _completely_ ruin his chances? __  
  
“You hear any of that, boy?” Mr. Mellark asks. “You’ve got a visitor.”  
  
“Yes, sir,” he says.  
  
“You’d better go on and take your break now before she leaves,” he suggests, shooting him a wink that says very clearly that he remembers when he had taken his break about an hour earlier.  
  
“Thank you,” he says, smiling, as he pulls his apron off and hangs it on the hook. Katniss is still waiting at the counter when he comes out, looking down at her hands on the counter.  
  
“Katniss!” he says, smiling. “Hey.”  
  
She looks up at him and raises her eyebrows. He reaches up to touch his hair, mortified when even more flour comes out.  
  
She narrows her eyes at him almost accusingly. “I thought you were sick.”  
  
He laughs, uncomfortable. “Ah. Yeah, well you know how those things are.”  
  
One look at her says that no, she doesn’t. Her eyes land on his arms and he glances down at the angry red marks from the night before, wishing that he had some sort of way to cover them up.  
  
“So, is there anything I can help you with?” he asks.  
  
Katniss nods. “Everyone paired up for midterm projects in History today. I got you.”  
  
His breath catches in his throat. A project? With _Katniss Everdeen_?  
  
“So I just wanted to tell you not to worry about it. All I need is for you to sign it when I’m finished with the paper and we should be fine.”  
  
“I think we’re supposed to do it together.”  
  
She looks almost exasperated already. “I don’t mind doing it myself. I usually do.”  
  
“Well, I usually work on mine,” he informs her, smiling. “Besides, we’ll get done way faster if it’s the two of us. Don’t you think?”  
  
She actually sighs and he tries not to take it personally. “Fine.”  
  
“I’ve got the day off on Wednesday,” he announces. “Maybe we can work on it then if you’d be okay meeting up here after school?”  
  
She thinks about it for a second and then nods. “Fine.”  
  
“So, what do you want to make the –”  
  
“I’m sorry, Peeta,” she interrupts, glancing over her shoulder. “My sister and her friends are waiting, I should really get them home.”  
  
“Right,” he says. “Yeah, of course. I’ll see you on Wednesday.”  
  
“See you on Wednesday,” she responds, giving him a firm nod.

He grins like an idiot all night.


	2. Chapter 2

He’s staring at her. She feels vain for even thinking he is, but his eyes keep flicking from her to her paper. His notes are double spaced, neat, evenly written. With little tiny drawings in the margins. Hers are a mess. Angling in different directions and taking up every possibly space on the page that they could. No wonder he’s so fascinated by them. Someone like Peeta Mellark can have as much paper as he wants.   
  
“So,” Peeta says, glancing over his shoulder. “Where do you want to start?”   
  
She shrugs. They – she – decided that he would write the report down, since he had the better handwriting of the two, but that she would gather information so they could outline it. She hates how _involved_ he wants to be in this. She’s been paired with another Town kid once for a project and they’ve let her do it all. It’s easier that way. She doesn’t know if she trusts her grades in Peeta’s hands.   
  
“Well, your notes are better than mine.”   
  
She snorts. “I could have told you that.”   
  
He puts a hand over his heart, wounded, and she jabs a finger at his notes.   
  
“This is from _Earth Science_. We’re working on History.”   
  
“I have notes from History here, too,” he says, pointing out a couple of other lines. But he hesitates, as if realizing that she’s right. “Okay, yeah, I’m sort of terrible at taking notes. Can I . . . could I look at yours?”   
  
She nods, sliding them across the table to him. It’s not the best place in the world to study, at one of the little tables in Mellark’s Bakery, but she wasn’t about to invite him to _her_ house. Especially not after he suggested that they just meet up here. Peeta’s brother Rye is on counter duty, and he comes out with a basket of day-olds, setting it on the table between the two of them with a wink and heading back to his spot. Katniss dutifully ignores them – and how hungry she suddenly feels – even when Peeta tells her to help herself.   
  
“Okay, maybe everyone is bad at taking notes in comparison to you,” Peeta says, turning the paper so he can get a better look at it. “Is this just – do you just transcribe the whole lecture?”   
  
She shakes her head. Does he think she enjoys class? She’s just learned that she’s less likely to get yelled at for staring out the window if she busies herself with notes. Especially since their History teacher has it out for her. For all the kids in the Seam, probably, but especially for Katniss.   
  
 “I think you do.”   
  
“It’s not like it’s _hard_ ,” she argues, and he smiles at her.   
  
“Do you reuse your notes? Because I feel like you probably could.”   
  
“Probably,” she agrees. Peeta must hate the class even more than she does. Coal has little to no impact on his life. He’ll never end up in the mines. Not with his family’s bakery to support him. And even though Katniss knows that you don’t have to know everything there is to know about coal to work in the mines – you couldn’t possibly – she also knows that the mines won’t hire you unless you’ve graduated. Hell, you won’t survive if you haven’t graduated. The Peacekeepers come for you after you miss enough days of school.   
  
She wonders how Peeta gets away with it. The angry red marks on his arms have faded to a bruise so light that she wouldn’t be able to make them out if she didn’t know what she was looking for. His secret is probably the worst kept one in the District.   
  
“So,” he says, startling her out of her train of thought. They work out the details of their paper, next, and sit in silence for a while when he starts to write it down. She could leave. Just write her own version of the paper in case he flakes on her or if she doesn’t like what he does with it.   
  
  
She doesn’t leave, though. And they ace the project. And afterwards, when she expects to never talk to him again, he sticks his hands in his pockets.   
  
“So, um, maybe you could come over again, sometime? Next time they give us a project?”   
  
“You think they’ll pair us up again?” Katniss asks.   
  
“Do they have to?” Peeta asks.


End file.
